Top 5 Tips for Raising Kids with Good Self-Esteem

It’s the start of a new school year, and your child’s self-esteem will make a big difference in how your child views life both in and out of school. I’m not talking about praising everything your child does and creating a “praise junkie.” You can do a lot toward helping your child truly develop high self-esteem. Here are my top 5 tips for raising kids with good self-esteem.

1. Give your child positive attention. Spend time with your child and help your child feel he or she belongs and is significant.

2. Use positive discipline methods, focusing on communication and logical consequences. I have a series of discipline articles at Living Montessori Now that focus on discipline methods that are effective and help your child feel respected and valued as a person.

3. Encourage your child, but don’t give excessive praise or emphasize the outcome. Especially encourage your child’s effort and persistence in a task. It’s important that your child feels encouraged to work hard on a task, gaining internal satisfaction (and positive character traits).

By giving excessive praise or emphasizing the product, your child is at risk of becoming a praise junkie who’s afraid to try something new. It really is all about the journey, not the outcome. Here are a few posts I’ve written that focus on developing self-esteem and positive character traits rather than focusing on the outcome:

4. Be sure your child knows that your love isn’t dependent upon your child’s physical attractiveness. Girls especially need to know that they’re competent and special for who they are, not how they look. Healthy bodies can still be encouraged through an emphasis on healthy eating and a lifestyle that includes ways to be physically fit. You’ll find lots of body-image resources here: Helping Mothers and Daughters Have Healthy Body Images.

5. Follow your child’s interests. This is an essential Montessori principle, and it’s one that works for children at any age. Following your child’s interests ensures that your child will feel respected and provides your child the greatest chance of self-motivation and success. If you have a young child, here’s a post with 10 Montessori principles that can give your child a great start toward competence and good self-esteem: Top 10 Montessori Principles for Natural Learning.

I would have to say that if your child is musical & sings to themselves, listen to them & if it sounds original & you play an instrument put it down on paper & when your child hears their song either or back to them it really will boost their self-esteem.
That feeling of SELF-achievement can never be taken away from them. They ‘created’ this & nobody can take it from them.

Good tips! #4 is important. I really dislike how often I hear little girls praised (even by strangers) for beauty. Often seems like the first and only comment that’s made about a young girl, that or admiration for her clothing.Mary recently posted..Summer Skating and Learning the Lutz

Helpful tips. I think that number 4 is very important because girls are so fragile when they are teenagers and even before that. Also the number 5 gives very good point because you cant force your child to like something that he really doesn’t.Sara recently posted..Helsingin pitopalveluiden hintataso

Connect With Me

Search

Subscribe by Email

Word Art Information

If you want to share any of my word-art files, please share the link to the blog post the word art is on. If you use my word art on your blog or website, please credit me and link to the original blog post. You're welcome to share any of my word-art images on sites like Facebook, but use the image with the URL. Thanks! :)